


A Night of Normalcy

by Phandabbydosey



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, But in an angsty situation, Cancer, Fluff, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phil is a sweetheart, Pneumonia, Prom, eh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phandabbydosey/pseuds/Phandabbydosey
Summary: Dan just wished he could be normal again and is left heartbroken after his cancer forces him to miss his school prom. Hating seeing his boyfriend so down, Phil finds a way to give him the perfect night he deserves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is phandabbydosey if you would rather read this over there :D

“You all ready for Friday?” Dan asked in a quiet voice from where he was laying with his head in Phil’s lap, his big brown eyes looking up at his boyfriend adoringly.

“Of course I am, you forced me to get everything sorted months ago, remember?” Phil chuckled, smiling down at Dan and gently running his hand through the younger boy’s thinning hair.

It was the their school prom on Friday and Phil hadn’t seen Dan so excited for a long time. He was glad the boy was getting some positivity, he definitely needed it after how harsh things had been recently.

Three and a half months ago, Dan had been diagnosed with lung cancer. It’d hit the sixteen year old hard, but his family and Phil had supported him through it and he was coping. It was unrealistic to say he was okay - he’d had countless nights where he’d spent the entirety sat in front of the toilet, throwing up everything he’d eaten that day, and he had to be hooked up to an oxygen tank all day - but he was coping and the doctors said he was doing well.

Between all the chemotherapy, check ups and side effects, Dan’s life had been flipped upside down, the colourful classroom walls being replaced with the sterile white ones of the hospital. He was trying hard to keep up with school work, but with chemo sessions twice a week leaving him exhausted and nauseous, the headmaster had already spoken with him to suggest repeating the year.

But now, with prom only a few days away, Dan was finally feeling normal again. He was once again doing the same thing everyone else his age was doing and it’d boosted his mood amazingly.

Even the cough and strange fever he’d been developing over the past few days didn’t dampen his mood. He hadn’t told Phil about them because Phil was such a worrier, always getting overprotective of his sick boyfriend. It was sweet, but it did get a little tedious having Phil insist they go to the hospital every time he got a cold.

“The doctors have said you’re okay to go, right?” Phil asked, the all too familiar little crease forming between his eyes while Dan’s rolled up in their sockets.

“Yes, you were there when they said it,” he chuckled fondly, reaching up and gently rubbing his thumb along Phil’s eyebrows, forcing them to relax, “Relax, everything will be fine. We’ll just be a normal couple for the night, no worrying about any stupid tumours or chemo or anything. Just u-”

Dan’s sweet speech was cut of by a rather nasty sounding round of coughing, one which brought the worry right back onto Phil’s face.

“That sounded bad,” he bit his lip, looking down at Dan’s face as they boy got his breath back, “Have you had that checked out?”

“No, no it’s fine,” Dan huffed, having a little difficulty speaking around the tightness in his chest, “It’s just a little cough. It’ll be gone by prom.”

“Dan,” Phil said warningly, gently pushing Dan off his lap and forcing him to sit up, looking him in the eye, “You can’t just brush things off, remember what they doctors said? Things like this can end up being really dangerous if you leave them too long.”

“Phil, it’s just a cough,” Dan muttered, pouting as he was evicted from his comfy spot, “I’d know if there was something more serious going on. Really, I don’t need to go to doctors.”

Phil looked into Dan’s eyes, sighing when he saw the stubborn glint shining in the boy’s brown irises. There was no way he could win this one.

“Fine,” he huffed, pulling Dan closer again so they could cuddle, “Just make sure you keep an eye on it.”

 

————————————————

 

Phil knew he should’ve pushed Dan to go to the doctors, he’d _known_ that cough didn’t sound good. He shouldn’t have been such a pushover. Maybe then he wouldn’t be rushing to the hospital at 1 am on a Wednesday morning.

Dan’s mum had called him, her voice strangled with tears as she explained that Dan had started to cough up blood before his breathing turned raspy and laboured. They’d rushed him to A&E, then had been ushered into a waiting room and not been told anything else.

Phil’s heart pounded as he ran into the hospital, terrified that if he took too long he would miss Dan’s last moments. That was the worst case scenario of course, but Phil’s over-worried brain couldn’t help but whisper _what if what if what if_ over and over again.

He quickly found the room Dan’s parents were in, blurting out, “Is he okay?!” before he even said hello.

Dan’s father walked up to Phil and placed a hand on his arm, smiling kindly, “The doctor just came and spoke to us and Dan’s okay. Well…he’s got pneumonia but they said he’s going to be okay.”

Phil let out a heavy sigh and his previously tensed muscles sagged, but he noticed the look on Dan’s mum’s face. She still looked broken and a closer look into Dan’s father’s dark eyes revealed the same distraught expression. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong, I can see. P-Please don’t lie to me. If he’s not okay you need to tell me.”

“It’s…he’s going to be okay but,” Dan’s dad let out a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous trait he passed down to his son, “Well the chemo’s basically destroyed his immune system, which is why the pneumonia got so bad so fast. The doctor said that he’s too vulnerable to infection and that if he gets another serious one it could…it could kill him. So they’re putting him in isolation until they get his white blood cell count up. So long as we’re not unwell we can go into his room, but he’s not going to be allowed out for the foreseeable future.”

“But, that means he won’t-”

“He won’t be able to go to prom,” Dan’s mum finished, her bloodshot eyes filling up with tears at the same time Phil’s tears overflowed onto his cheeks.

 

—————————————

 

Dan did not take the news well. He’d woken up a little while after Phil and his parents had come into the room - using the hand sanitizer that was just inside the doorway; he was groggy and confused, but smiled when he saw his boyfriend was right next to him.

The smile disappeared about ten minutes later, when the doctor came in and explained the situation to Dan. Phil held Dan as he sobbed his poor heart out, a few tears dribbling down his own face.

It wasn’t fair. Dan had been through so much these past few months, so much more than anyone his age should have to, and he’d been brave throughout it all. He’d had his world flipped upside and all he’d wanted, all he’d asked for, was one night to be a normal teenage boy again. But no, no the universe wouldn’t let him have that and had ripped it away, leaving the boy completely devastated.

And all Phil could do was hold him and whisper empty promises into his ear.

 

——————————–

 

Dan seemed to have fallen into a slump, spending most of his days sleeping or just sitting silently in his hospital bed, sometimes reading but sometimes just staring off into space. He’d cried on the night on the prom, but other than that he didn’t really show much emotion at all. His pneumonia was all but gone now, but Dan’s psychological state had taken a huge blow.

It broke Phil’s heart to see him like that and he’d felt so helpless at first, not being able to much more than offer Dan company and a cuddle. But now, about a week after Dan’s admission into hospital, he figured he’d finally thought up a way to give Dan the boost he needed.

After a lot of long conversations with doctors and nurses, during some which he had basically resort to begging, he’d got everything organised and he was finally ready to put his plan in motion.

Dan had been taken out of the room for a scan in his bed, a surgical mask on his face to try and keep as many germs out as possible, so Phil had a small window of time to get everything sorted. Things were a little scruffy and unpolished, but Phil looked over his work proudly before quickly going to get ready.

——————————-

 

Dan was silent throughout the scan, not missing the worried looks that the doctors and nurses but not acknowledging them either. He couldn’t be bothered. To be honest, he couldn’t really be bothered to do anything anymore, it just didn’t seem worth it.

He had been planning on just having a nap once he’d got back to his little hospital room, feeling too weary to really do much else. That plan was dashed when he was pushed in through the door by a porter, confusion flourishing across his face as he lifting himself up on his elbows to get a better look.

There were bright fairy lights and little lanterns strung up all around the room, the main lights switched off so the sterile white walls were transformed into a calming and beautiful blend of colours. There was a little table off to the side with some bowls of crisps and a jug of punch, an ipod dock next to it which started playing a smooth, sweet melody as soon as Dan entered the room. Dan’s eyes scanned across the big, hand painted banner scrawled with the words ‘Dan’s Private Prom’, before they were drawn to the most stunning thing in the room.

Phil was stood in the space Dan’s bed usually took up, dressed in a sharp suit and looking … absolutely magnificent. He lean body was accentuated in all the right places, his hair had been styled carefully and his eyes were lit up by the big smile that stretched across his face and displayed a set of sparkling white teeth.

“Phil…I…What’s this?” Dan asked stupidly as he pulled the mask off his face, a little gobsmacked by the whole thing.

“It’s your prom,” Phil beamed, swinging his arms out in a proud gesture around the room, “I know how upset you were that you couldn’t go to prom, so I thought I’d bring prom to you.”

A smile slowly spread across Dan’s face as Phil spoke, making his eyes sparkle for the first time in a long while. Still a little shaky and weak from the havoc pneumonia had wrecked in his body, Dan slid himself off the bed and blundered his way over to Phil, throwing his skinny arms around his boyfriend’s neck and holding on tight.

“I-I love you, I love you so much,” he whispered, voice choked with emotion and happy tears.

“I love you too Bear,” Phil replied, leaning back a little to kiss Dan softly and brush the hair from his forehead. It had really thinned out and Phil guessed it would be completely gone soon, but they’d cross that bridge when they got to it, “C’mon let’s get you into your suit. You can’t have your prom without a suit.”

Dan chuckled and let Phil gently push him away then help him into his suit. He’d spent so long picking out something perfect, so he was so happy that it didn’t all go to waste now.

Once Dan was all dressed, Phil took a step back and admired the beautiful boy. “Dan, you look stunning,” he breathed, letting his eyes wander down Dan’s body and across his smiling face. He hadn’t seen Dan smiling so much for ages and it warmed his heart, his big brown eyes twinkling in the exact same way they had on the day they shared their first ‘I love you’.

“One more thing,” Phil said softly, turning his back to the confused Dan to grab the final piece of the picture. He kept the object hidden behind his back as he gently ordered Dan to close his eyes, laughing at the perplexed look on Dan’s face. He carefully positioned the item on Dan’s wrist, hearing him suck in a breath when he realised what it was.

“Phil,” Dan murmured, looking over the corsage adorning his wrist. It matched the boys’ purple ties perfectly, a single purple rose surrounded by tiny white, frilly flowers, delicate green leaves and tumbling purple bows, “You…You did all this for me?”

Tears shone in Dan’s eyes and Phil kissed him again, chuckling softly. “Of course I did, Bear, it’s all for you,” he said, his voice hushed as he bowed and took Dan’s left hand, pressing a charming kiss to the back, “Now, may I have this dance?”

Still tearful and emotional but giggling all the same, Dan nodded, letting Phil lead him into the empty space left in the middle of the room where his bed would normally be parked. The porter had set it off to the side before he’d left just after Dan had stood up.

“Neither of us actually know how to dance, do we?” Dan asked with a smirk while Phil rested his hands on Dan’s waist and Dan’s snaked their way around Phil’s neck.

“Nope, not at all,” Phil snickered, started to sway slowly to the music. He knew it would be a bad idea to try anything more complex, combining Dan’s illness weakened body and their combined natural clumsiness with dancing would be a disaster.

“Well, I’m perfectly happy with this,” Dan murmured, leaning up and kissing Phil softly before following his rhythm and stepping side to side in time with the music. It was a pretty playlist, full of melodic and mellow love songs that were perfect for a slow dance, none of the heavy bass and sharp notes of the dance songs that would inevitably have been played at a school prom, “I must say, you’re music choice is impeccable.”

Phil laughed, keeping his the sound low and serene to match the atmosphere of the room. “I thought I’d go for a more romantic ambiance,” Phil said, putting on a snobby voice, “I thought the fairy lights really settled the feng shui.”

“Shut the fuck up Phil,” Dan snorted playfully, bumping his forehead against Phil’s then just letting it stay there, his dark eyes staring deeply into Phil’s, “I really do love you, you massive, soppy, romantic dork.”

“And I love you too, my pretty little Bear,” Phil cooed then leant forward and connected their lips. The kiss was slow and placid, but the love flowing between the boys was almost tangible in the air around them.

They ate a little of the food and spent the night dancing and laughing and … feeling normal. Phil had carefully settled Dan down onto his bed when he’d fallen asleep in Phil’s arms, the slow music and rhythmic swaying having lulled him into a slumber while they were dancing.

Phil didn’t mind at all though, they’d had a perfect evening and Dan had been given the little shot of normalcy that he needed. Plus, seeing Dan’s adorable sleeping face was worth anything.

Their lives had been mangled into something unrecognisable by the ugly tumours trying to eat Dan from the inside out, school having been replaced with hospitals and parties being replaced with chemotherapy side effects.

But, even when things were things were seeming hopeless and bleak, they’d managed to salvage a single night of normality, and - while he watched his boyfriend sleeping peacefully on the hospital with an oxygen tube snaking around his face - Phil thought that maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to get through this.

 


End file.
